How Mysuru, One Of The Cleanest Cities In India, Is Turning Tonnes Of Garbage Into Millions Of Rupees

Mysuru, the heritage city of Karnataka, is turning its garbage into cash and alongside, is leading with an example for other cities to follow.

The recent rapid expansion of India's economy has moved its reputation for poor sanitation and dirty streets into a full-blown crisis. Rising wealth and consumption, and growing urbanisation could cause the amount of urban solid waste to increase five-fold by 2051, according to a paper published in 2016 by researchers at New Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University.

It is a mammoth crisis to deal with but with a little acumen and technology, Mysuru civic authorities have found a viable solution to it and it also involves making money.

Mysuru is the cleanest city in India. But this feat wasn¡¯t achieved overnight. The city has efficiently adopted 3 Rs¡¯ ¨C Refuse, Reduce, Recycle. Now it has added another R ¨C Reuse.

youtube

Mysuru boasts of door-to-door garbage collection and that¡¯s how it monetises the waste it generates.

How compost leads to cash

Residents of Mysuru emerge out of their homes with two dustbins ¨C one compost other non-compost -- at the first whistle call for garbage collection early morning.

Sanitary workers load up 400 push carts and 170 auto-trippers for one destination - nine recycling centers, 47 dry waste collection centres and a compost plant. At the centres, the trash is segregated, with reusable items such as bottles, metal, footwear and plastic cups being sold to scrap dealers.

The rest is composted and sent to farmers.

¡°By creating garbage processing centres in the city, we have created a workable model where wet waste is made into compost.

The compost plant generates 200 tonnes a day.

Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) gets Rs 6 lakh as royalty from ILFS (who operates the biggest compost plant), while processing centres earn another ?24,000 a month by selling dry waste,¡± said CG Betsurmath, former Commissioner of the MCC, reports Hindu Business Line.

Mysuru has achieved 100 per cent door-to-door collections and 80 per cent of its garbage is segregated before being processed.

Mysuru functions like an ideal city. The public toilets are functional, is poster-free 98 per cent of its 1,586-km network of drains are covered. Not just this, Mysuru is also free of open defecation, and the credit does not go alone to Swachch Bharat, but to the army of people who do their best to keep the city clean.

The city ran a slum rehabilitation programme, under which 6,000 units of toilets were built. This is the key to tackle the open defecation problem. Radio shows in the city do not just play songs and comedy commentary, instead runs regular campaigns including morning radio jingles. WhatsApp messages, street plays and pamphlets also play a significant role.

Of the 402 tons of waste Mysuru produces each day, close to a quarter is processed by these centres and about half is treated at the compost plant, says Bloomberg.

indiatimes

Mysuru has a dazzling history of cleanliness. It¡¯s rulers not only built alluring palaces, but set up a planning body in 1903, introduced street lighting in 1908 and built an underground drainage system by 1910.

For two consecutive years, Mysuru has topped the Ministry of Urban Development¡¯s national ranking of city administrations on solid-waste management, toilet construction, sanitation strategy, public outreach and other measures.